Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests

by Inc. Mystery Writers of America

  “There’d be proof on his car,” Bangor said.

  “I’ll have the police take a look at it.”

  Zach Wanamaker cleared his throat. “If you’re done with this little charade, I’ll be getting back to work.” He picked up a folder and departed.

  Fine glanced down at the state police fax on the table in front of him. He was sorry now he’d ever gotten involved in this. Was he as bad as Bangor in besmirching an innocent man?

  “Wait a minute!” he said, staring at the fax as if seeing it for the first time. “There’s something wrong here.”

  “What’s that?” Susan asked.

  Fine didn’t answer her. Instead, he grabbed the fax and followed Judge Wanamaker out of the office, ignoring a question from the Chief. He strode quickly across the reception area to Wanamaker’s door and went in without knocking.

  The judge looked up from his desk. “What is it now?”

  “You killed her after all, Zach,” he managed to blurt out. “You really killed her, didn’t you?”

  Judge Wanamaker stood up, his face aghast with shock or anger. “What are you talking about, Fine? You just proved my innocence.”

  “That was my mistake, wasn’t it?” He tossed the fax down on Wanamaker’s desk. “Read it and weep, Zach.”

  “What? This is the state police report. I admit I killed the deer. This has nothing to do with McGuire’s death.”

  “Doesn’t it? He says you had a broken right front fender, with blood and bits of fur on the car, but no other damage. Yet your garage is installing a new fender and a new right headlight.”

  The judge tried to shrug it off. “So the trooper missed the headlight.”

  “Hard to do when it was still dark out. He might not have let you drive home with just one headlight.”

  “It might have been damaged and failed on the way home.”

  Fine shook his head. “No, because Colin Penny mentioned seeing your headlights when you turned into the street.”

  “That was almost seven thirty. How could I have showered and changed and still killed the woman?”

  “You didn’t shower and change till later, if at all. You were only ten minutes from the spot where Maeve McGuire was run down and killed.” As he spoke, he was aware of the door opening behind him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Judge Bangor enter the office.

  “That’s crazy,” Wanamaker tried to argue. “It was morning by that time. Even on her little street there might have been traffic and pedestrians to see what happened, to take down a license number.”

  “But there weren’t, were there? If you’d seen another car or person, you’d just have driven on and done nothing. It was a crime of convenience, though not too convenient for Maeve. You had to silence her before she revealed the bribery charges against you, and that was a perfect opportunity.”

  “Do you think you can prove any of this?”

  “I do,” Fine told him. “If the headlight was broken when you hit her, there’d have been pieces of glass at the scene. I’m sure the forensics lab will be able to match them to your headlight.”

  Wanamaker turned to the Chief. “Do you believe any of this?”

  “I do,” Bangor said. “You’re finished, Zach.”

  “At least give me the deal you gave Penny. Accept my resignation. The whole thing can be hushed up for the good of the court.”

  But the Chief only shook his head. “You killed Maeve, Zach. You killed her, and there’s no way I’m hushing that up. If it means a black eye for my court, at least her death won’t go unpunished.”

  “Judge—”

  Bangor shook his head and pronounced his verdict.

  “You’re guilty as charged.”

  DESIGNER JUSTICE

  BY PHYLLIS COHEN

  Never long on patience, Harold Vekt was beginning to think about giving up. His feet hurt and his beer-laden bladder was trying to get his attention.

  His luck, he decided, stank. Forty minutes had passed since he’d positioned himself behind the hedges leading to the elaborate teak-and-glass entryway of the Waterside Club, on the edge of the river that divided the city. Every departing couple had been ushered into a taxi hailed by one of the plushly uniformed doormen, or into a limo that glided up to the entrance at just the right moment.

  Half the women wore furs, although the night was mild. Many of the men, and some of the women, carried leather briefcases. All were well dressed and well groomed. Jewelry with possibilities showed on all the women and many of the men.

  Didn’t any of them live within walking distance?

  He was about to take a chance on assuaging his bladder in the hedges when the door opened once again and a baritone voice declared, “No thank you, Antonio. It’s a fine evening. We’ll walk home.” Vekt gritted his teeth and zipped up.

  The couple appeared to be in their late forties, a few years younger than Harold’s mother. Though with their easy-street life, he thought, they could look like that and be much older. The woman’s hair was honey gold and sleekly coiffed. She wore a beige fur jacket over an amber silk dress, oval earrings of gold rimmed with tiny diamonds, a thick gold bracelet, and a ring that was simple in style but held a diamond of several carats. The man, in a three-piece gray suit, wore a gold pocket watch and carried a tan leather briefcase of the old-fashioned envelope style, with a flap and two buckled straps.

  The man and woman walked up First Avenue, busy and well lit, and turned east on 56th Street. Vekt stayed three-quarters of a block behind them. They crossed Sutton Place; here no one else was about, and the bare but thickly branched trees dimmed the street lighting. Vekt grasped the weapon in the pocket of his gray hooded jacket and increased his pace until he was about twenty feet from them. “Excuse me, sir.”

  The couple halted and turned. “Yes?”

  He moved closer. In his upturned left hand was a slip of paper. “I’m looking for Ninety-two Sutton Terrace.”

  The man pointed toward the river. “Sutton Terrace is around that corner, but as far as I know, there’s no ninety-two.”

  Vekt had closed the gap between them. He brandished the scrap of paper, and then his right hand was out with a slim-barreled black handgun and his left arm was tight around the woman’s waist.

  “Okay—the rules are: one, be quiet; two, open the briefcase and put your wallet in it. And if you happen to have a gun, remember that I can shoot her before you could even aim at me.”

  Staring, rigid, the man complied. Gargling noises came from the woman’s throat. Vekt jabbed the gun into the back of her armpit and whispered fiercely. “Shut—up!”

  He turned back to the man. “Now, your watch, with all its attachments.” Into the briefcase went the Patek Philippe with its heavy gold chain and fob and Phi Beta Kappa key. “The wedding band too.” It was of textured gold and about half an inch wide.

  Vekt turned to the woman, keeping the gun in place. “Now your stuff—into the briefcase. First the purse.”

  “There’s no—”

  “Quiet. The purse.” Her husband held out the briefcase; she dropped in the small cream leather bag with its mother-of-pearl clasp. “Your jewelry. All of it.”

  She started with the bracelet, using her teeth to undo the difficult catch. The earrings were next, then the solitaire, followed by a diamond wedding band that Vekt hadn’t noticed.

  He took the briefcase with his left hand. “Now, if you make any noise before I’m out of sight, I’ll be back here before anyone else has time to show up. In which case you won’t live to tell them anything.” Shifting his gaze back and forth between them, he walked backward, aiming the gun.

  He was ready to turn and run when a glint flashed in his left eye. It came from the base of the woman’s throat.

  Vekt dashed forward, grabbing at her neck for the thin gold chain with its small disk pendant.

  “You stupid bitch—I said all of it!”

  “NO!” she shrieked, flailing at him. “Not this! My baby! You can’t take it! Y
ou can’t have her!” She scratched his eyelids with one hand and pulled his greasy blond hair with the other.

  He shoved the gun between her breasts and pulled the trigger. The husband was clawing at him; he shot without aiming and flew off down the street just as the first window opened in an adjacent building. He had not taken the chain.

  ____

  VEKT FLUSHED THE toilet, huffing with relief, and jumped into the shower, making the water as hot as he could stand it. He soaped himself until he was coated with white, and then rinsed for ten minutes, gradually changing the mix until it ran ice cold.

  Wrapped in a huge, thick, white towel, he strode with damp footsteps into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of Heineken from the refrigerator. But he put it back without opening it; his gut feeling told him that this was more than a beer occasion. He poured three ounces of Glenlivet over two chunky ice cubes in a thick tumbler and carried it into the living room, ready to assess the evening’s proceeds.

  Vekt began with high hopes and ended with exultation. Cash: $1,145 in the wallet, $312 in the purse. Credit cards: five, including two platinums. Jewelry: the best, and plain design, easy to dump. Except the watch: an intricate antique; he’d have to hold it for a while. Maybe even wear it; he could afford a three-piece suit. Except the earrings too, damn it. The name of a well-known brand of costume jewelry was stamped on the back. The bitch!

  ____

  VEKT’S FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD fence was in a good mood. “These two”—the diamond rings—“let’s say five thousand.”

  “Seven.”

  “Fifty-five hundred.”

  “They’re at least twenty-five retail.”

  “Six.”

  “Done. How about the gold stuff?”

  “The bracelet—mmmm—four hundred. This ring’s a problem—it has initials inside.”

  “So remove them.”

  “I will, but it ain’t easy. And it leaves scars—reduces the resale value. Seventy-five.”

  “Come on, Lou, it’s a five-hundred-dollar ring.”

  “One hundred’s the best I can do. Better than you’ll get elsewhere.”

  Vekt conceded. He coaxed Lou out of fifty for each of the credit cards and for the leather briefcase. He was now clean of almost all the evidence. The purse and its trivial contents had been thrown down a sewer; the gun and the blond wig went with it. Only the antique watch remained, in the movable heel of a brown leather boot, lined up in a closet with all his other footwear.

  ____

  VEKT WAS STARTLED by a hand touching his left forearm. His eyes and mind had been wandering around the courtroom, from the gold chains around the neck of a pudgy middle-aged juryman to the reporter who had all her parts in the right place under clothes that showed them off.

  He turned toward his attorney after a second nudge. “You must, I repeat, must, pay attention,” the man growled. “If a witness says anything that you can challenge, write it down—push the paper to where I can see it from the corner of my eye.”

  It was still a mystery to Vekt how he had lucked out with this lawyer. Wilson Herrera was nationally known for his high acquittal rate and his six-figure fees. “Every attorney gets to do court appointments once in a while” was all he’d said in explanation.

  The prosecutor’s six-foot-two-inch frame, with its hint of a paunch, moved agilely in its charcoal-gray vested suit as he faced the witness over rimless granny glasses. Vekt took a perverse comfort from Luther Johnson’s dark brown skin. Only two of the jurors were black. Maybe the other ten wouldn’t buy it from one of them.

  ____

  “DETECTIVE SWAYZE. TELL us why you decided to arrest Harold Vekt for the murder of Annabelle Jagoda.”

  “Her husband, Morris Jagoda, identified him in a lineup.”

  “And why did you include Mr. Vekt in the lineup to begin with?”

  “Mr. Jagoda had identified his picture.”

  Vekt watched Herrera write, with a silver-plated Parker pen, pic→l’up.

  “Is this the picture?”

  The detective studied the stiff 4 x 6 paper. “Yes.”

  “What was the source of the picture?”

  “Police files.” Herrera underlined his cryptic notation.

  “Describe the person as you see him in the picture.”

  “Long, narrow face, short, light brown hair, narrow eyes close together, sharp, straight nose, down-curved lips, small ears close to the head.”

  “Do you see the person in this courtroom?”

  “Yes. The defendant.” He pointed to Vekt with a jabbing motion. Johnson glared at Harold, then with deliberation shifted his gaze to the jury.

  “Pass the witness.”

  Herrera rose. “Detective Swayze, did Mr. Jagoda provide a description of the person who had robbed him and shot his wife?”

  “Yes.”

  The lawyer held out a page. “Does this statement include that description?”

  Swayze scanned the printed sheet. “Yes.”

  “Please read the outlined phrase.”

  Swayze cleared his throat. “‘Shoulder-length blond hair.’”

  It was Herrera’s turn to look pointedly from the defendant to the jury. “Detective, you say Mr. Jagoda selected Mr. Vekt’s picture and then identified him in a lineup. Was anyone else whose picture he was shown included in the lineup?”

  “Uhh—no—the others were cops or civilian employees of the precinct.”

  “When Mr. Jagoda was viewing the lineup, what did you say to him?”

  “I asked him to ID the perpetrator.”

  “To be more specific, did you say, ‘Is the person who shot your wife among them?’ or did you ask, ‘Which of these people did it?’”

  Swayze looked perplexed, then shrugged and shook his head. “I really don’t remember.” Herrera opened his mouth, then waggled his fingers in a dismissive gesture.

  “Now, Detective, after Mr. Vekt was arrested, was a search of his apartment conducted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who conducted it?”

  “I and my partner—Louis Walters—and two uniforms. Uniformed police officers.”

  “Describe the search—how thorough was it?”

  “We looked in every closet, every drawer, every pocket, every cushion, every shoe, every food container. The toilet tank, the freezer.”

  “In other words, every possible place of concealment?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what, if anything, did you find related to the robbery?”

  “More than eight thousand dollars in cash.”

  “Just cash? No jewelry? No papers from Mr. Jagoda’s briefcase, or the briefcase itself?”

  “No. But Vekt could have easily—”

  “Buts are not allowed, Detective. Was there anything at all that identified any part of the cash as having belonged to the Jagodas?”

  “Why would a guy like Vekt have so much cash around unless—?”

  “Please answer the question. Could you single out any of the cash as being proceeds of the robbery?”

  “No.”

  “No further questions.”

  Johnson jumped up. “Redirect, Your Honor.” The judge nodded.

  “Considering the hair discrepancy, why did you accept Mr. Jagoda’s identification of this picture and of Mr. Vekt in the lineup?”

  “We had cautioned Mr. Jagoda to pay more attention to the permanent than to the changeable characteristics. He looked at this picture for a long time, turned the page, and then, suddenly, turned it back, saying—”

  “Objection. Mr. Jagoda is the best source of what he himself said.”

  “Sustained. Mr. Johnson, you may pursue this when Mr. Jagoda is on the stand.”

  ____

  VEKT LOOKED AT the ceiling as Morris Jagoda entered the courtroom and walked stiffly toward the stand. Herrera jabbed his thigh. “The jury is watching you!” he hissed through clenched teeth.

  Luther Johnson’s body language managed to suggest deference a
nd compassion as he began to question Jagoda. “I know, sir, that this is extremely painful for you. But it’s necessary if justice is to be done. Please tell us what occurred on the night of March twenty-first last year.”

  Jagoda licked his lips. He rested his right hand on the ledge that held the microphone; his left arm hung at his side, bent slightly at an unchanging angle.

  “We were on our way home from dinner, walking along Fifty-sixth Street. Someone called out to us, asked for directions. Then he pulled a gun and grabbed hold of Annabelle and demanded our valuables. We gave them to him—he instructed us to put everything in my briefcase—and he ran off. But he must have caught sight of the chain Annabelle was wearing with our daughter’s pendant on it. He became enraged and ran back and grabbed for it. Annabelle became hysterical and tried to fight him off. He shot her, directly into the heart.”

  “Objection. Mr. Jagoda is not qualified to describe the course of the bullet.”

  Judge Patrick Quinn raised his bushy eyebrows. “Well—it hardly matters. The medical examiner has already testified to that fact.” Herrera shrugged. The judge signaled Johnson to continue.

  “Why did your wife, after surrendering all her other jewelry, resist his taking this item?”

  Jagoda’s eyes lost their focus. He seemed to have left the courtroom emotionally. The judge said, “Mr. Jagoda?”

  “Yes—sorry.

  “Felicity was our only child. We were nearly forty when she was born—our last chance. She was bright, lively, loving. Not the prettiest little girl in the world, but the most interesting, delightful, creative personality. For her third birthday we gave her a little round gold pendant, engraved with her initials intertwined with ours, as though we were all holding hands.

  “A few months later she became ill. She died of leukemia two months before her sixth birthday, after a great deal of suffering. She was brave too—did I say that? Annabelle put on the pendant and never took it off. She slept with it, she bathed with it. In the end, she defended it with her life, as though it were Felicity herself.”

  So that’s what set the bitch off, Vekt thought. He scanned the jury out of the corner of his eye and squirmed.